President of Stern Pinball Inc., Gary Stern said pinball is an American icon, and like our country’s economy, pinball isn’t in the best shape.
In October 1999, Williams Electronic Games Inc. left the pinball market, making Stern Pinball the sole manufacturer of pinball machines in the world. Stern said the pinball market has bottomed out, and it won’t ever return to the level of success achieved in 1992. In that year, Stern said 100,000 machines were made. In 2001, Stern Pinball will have produced 10,000 machines, at most.
Stern said his company is committed to releasing at least three games a year that have been designed in-house. Designing a game takes anywhere from nine months to a year, he said. Stern’s upcoming release, Monopoly, was designed in-house with the help of outside designer Pat Lawlor.
Lawlor is a celebrity in the pinball industry, having designed many successful machines, including “The Addams Family,” which is the biggest seller of the modern-era games, according to Stern.
Jerry Johnston’s company, Amusement Unlimited, distributes pinball machines and other games to The Break in the EMU. Five of the company’s 70 pinball machines are at the University, which is more units than at any other location, but pinball is only 10 percent of the company’s business, Johnston said.
Though pinball may be an American icon, it has international appeal. Stern Pinball does 40 percent of its business in exporting machines around the world, primarily to Western Europe. Stern said good pinball is self-teaching in a Pavlovian way: People respond to the mechanical stimuli before visually recognizing it — thus language barriers are less important.
“We need to have enough in the game for the better player, but first we need to create fun for the casual player,” Stern said.
University student Jason Lewis is not a casual player. For 11 years, he has perfected his skills at pinball into a fine art. Lewis said he spends a dollar a day for pinball on average (mostly in The Break), with an average playing time of an hour and a half. But that varies.
“I have had to rearrange my grocery budget (because of excessive playing) — not by intention, though,” he said.
Lewis establishes a direct connection between pinball expenditures and his classes in any given term.
“Playing pinball is a wonderful diversion from my classes not because it is a mental diversion; it ranks among the only times that my mind is actually stimulated,” he said.
Where the average pinball player doesn’t know all the subtle nuances of a pinball machine, Lewis has memorized most aspects of his favorite machine, “Medieval Madness.” One of his hints is activating multiball play before raising the trolls so that there are more balls on the table with which to hit the trolls.
Based on his criteria for good pinball games, Lewis said he is not hopeful for the Monopoly pinball machine.
“They found the right medium for that, which is the board game. Pinball machines are manic. They’re relentless, and they’re fast paced. Monopoly is slow,” he said.
Pinball distributor Johnston said that he would likely buy a few Monopoly machines and has already bought two Austin Powers games, one of which is in The Break.
Lewis keeps an eye on new games, such as “South Park,” but for the most part he is focused on beating “Medieval Madness” and getting more free games to perpetuate game play. To date, his record of free games, which is how he measures pinball success, is eight. Lewis was present when his older brother beat “Attack from Mars” in the EMU. He described it as “a spiritual experience,” vicarious though it was.
“He is the ruler of the universe,” Lewis said.
That title isn’t simply Lewis being boastful — the game bestows the honor after the victory.
Though the industry may not be booming, players such as Lewis will consider pinball indispensable.
“I still use the phrase, ‘Let’s go play video games,’ but it means pinball,” he said.